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“I have to say I was just shocked when I saw the story. I had heard what had happened, but I didn’t know who it was.

“When it is someone you worked with and liked, it is really incredibly sad. It is unbelievable in a way.”

At the hearing yesterday witnesses gave testimony that the car had been driven erratically on leaving a service station on the carriageway before heading eastbound on Sunday, August 27.

The court then heard her Audi stopped on the hard shoulder between junctions 16 and 17 near Swindon before performing a U-turn and travelling in the opposite direction of the fast lane westbound, into oncoming traffic.

The crash happened just after 10pm on August 27.

The coroner recorded the death as caused by a road traffic collision.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Coroners said: “Some of her movements remain unknown.

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“She was travelling from a campsite and was heading to a party in Cheltenham.

“She went to the services on the M4 and then she started leaving. At some stage between junction 16 and 17 she pulled up on the hard shoulder. She did a u turn and started driving in the wrong direction of the outside lane.

“We heard evidence from the pathologist and toxicologist which suggested her poor reactions and spatial awareness seen at the time was likely contributed by an excess of alcohol.

Anouska Paterson

“It is a dark stretch of the motorway and cars would have had her headlights in their eyes. They were unable to avoid the inevitable collision.”